12 September 2011

Has prayer been feminized? My thoughts.

This morning I switched on my tweetdeck to read this post from the lovely Brian Heasley:

"Anyone else ever worry that prayer has become overly feminized http://brianheasley.blogspot.com/2011/09/feminized-prayer.html I posted some thoughts @247prayer"

Brian is a brilliant blogger, I've been reading his Curious in Ibiza musings for many a year and I love how he can take a topic and stir up a bit of debate. The one he's hit on today is an interesting one and mirrors my thoughts from this past weekend particularly.

Fundamentally I agree with Brian's concern. Within European circles there do seem to be a lot more chicks than blokes involved in leading and taking part in prayer. (I don't think this is true in other continents but let's limit this to a close to home discussion.) I do lead the prayer team he mentions and he's right over the years we've had two (amazing) guys and seven women involved. This is actually been something of a concern for us and though we've actually sought to include more men we've found that difficult. It's not that there aren't many men with deep prayer lives, more often that their primary energy in serving and leading is channeled elsewhere. For example the corresponding 24-7 Communities team is all male.

Are women drawn to prayer and men drawn to community leadership? Is the trend a gender or cultural bias?

I think there is an element of what you see is what you replicate. Though many streams of the church have embraced female leadership in the last century there seem to be more men that women leading in this context. Could women be more involved in prayer because we've lacked male champions to point the way for their peers?

Now I am speaking in very broad generalisations because I actually know a lot of very prayerful men. Ian Cole, Etienne Piek, Pete Grieg (the leader of 24-7 Prayer!) and Brian himself (to name four of many) have led the way in this area. I think men can and do have deep personal prayer lives and many in my community meet regularly to pray with one or two other guys. But, as I said, in general and in my own community experience, corporate prayer does seem more regularly and eagerly engaged with by women than men.

Why?

Sorry Brian I don't think it has to do with women traditionally staying at home or men going to work and the time that potentially gives you. (All the home Mums I know are very busy women!)

I think style has something to do with it. As our church circles have moved more in creative and contemplative prayer we may arguably not have considered both genders in our approach. I've generally found that extreme and active prayer times attract a more balanced cross-section of the genders, where as our regular prayer breakfast has a ratio of about 2-1, women to men.

What do you guys think? I take this issue very seriously as it's something I really want to see change. Do you think there is an imbalance in the genders in prayer? Do you have any inklings as to why? What could we do to make it more open for all? (Read Brian's original blog post here.)

Comments

This morning I switched on my tweetdeck to read this post from the lovely Brian Heasley:

"Anyone else ever worry that prayer has become overly feminized http://brianheasley.blogspot.com/2011/09/feminized-prayer.html I posted some thoughts @247prayer"

Brian is a brilliant blogger, I've been reading his Curious in Ibiza musings for many a year and I love how he can take a topic and stir up a bit of debate. The one he's hit on today is an interesting one and mirrors my thoughts from this past weekend particularly.

Fundamentally I agree with Brian's concern. Within European circles there do seem to be a lot more chicks than blokes involved in leading and taking part in prayer. (I don't think this is true in other continents but let's limit this to a close to home discussion.) I do lead the prayer team he mentions and he's right over the years we've had two (amazing) guys and seven women involved. This is actually been something of a concern for us and though we've actually sought to include more men we've found that difficult. It's not that there aren't many men with deep prayer lives, more often that their primary energy in serving and leading is channeled elsewhere. For example the corresponding 24-7 Communities team is all male.

Are women drawn to prayer and men drawn to community leadership? Is the trend a gender or cultural bias?

I think there is an element of what you see is what you replicate. Though many streams of the church have embraced female leadership in the last century there seem to be more men that women leading in this context. Could women be more involved in prayer because we've lacked male champions to point the way for their peers?

Now I am speaking in very broad generalisations because I actually know a lot of very prayerful men. Ian Cole, Etienne Piek, Pete Grieg (the leader of 24-7 Prayer!) and Brian himself (to name four of many) have led the way in this area. I think men can and do have deep personal prayer lives and many in my community meet regularly to pray with one or two other guys. But, as I said, in general and in my own community experience, corporate prayer does seem more regularly and eagerly engaged with by women than men.

Why?

Sorry Brian I don't think it has to do with women traditionally staying at home or men going to work and the time that potentially gives you. (All the home Mums I know are very busy women!)

I think style has something to do with it. As our church circles have moved more in creative and contemplative prayer we may arguably not have considered both genders in our approach. I've generally found that extreme and active prayer times attract a more balanced cross-section of the genders, where as our regular prayer breakfast has a ratio of about 2-1, women to men.

What do you guys think? I take this issue very seriously as it's something I really want to see change. Do you think there is an imbalance in the genders in prayer? Do you have any inklings as to why? What could we do to make it more open for all? (Read Brian's original blog post here.)